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Anyone else experiencing severe APP LAG & slow loading/refresh with S2?

K
Userlevel 6
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Ever since we took the plunge for S2 (including upgrading/purchasing 6 new Sonos unit for S2 compatibility) it’s been a real mess (system stability and WiFi issues)! 

The iOS version of the S2 app is very slow to load, lags almost always, and has a terrible screen refresh rate compared to ANY iOS app we have in the household.   Now 20-40 seconds might not seem like long for an iPhone/Pad app to load/refresh, but if you’re trying to get some quick control over the volume or switching songs this is a STUPID amount of time! 

 

S1 was almost instant across all platforms and apps.  While I realize Apple can take some blame for issues with iOS apps, why is S2 slow on PC and Amazon Fire (Android) devices as well?  

I’m guessing I’m not the only one, but Sonos sure seem slow to address this no matter how many times I’ve reported it to support. 

Anyone else think this degrades the Sonos experience beyond the obvious annoyances (especially compared to the hundred or so other apps we use with NO lagging)? 

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Best answer by Airgetlam 2 January 2021, 00:23

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163 replies

K
Userlevel 6
Badge +3

Thanks Bruce for some good potential problem solving approaches.

However, I’ve been there done all of that and more - plus I’m working with top-tier engineers within Sonos.  They have admitted that there is indeed Application lag issues with S2 but not reported directly often so while they are aware it’s tied to the S2 application (all platforms/app versions), there are not enough data points (customer complaints/diagnostics submitted) to allow for a deep dive into what’s causing it.   Some blame may be placed on iOS 14.x.

To be clear I’m not asking about song/music/streaming lags to speakers, I’m asking about using the S2 app on your phones/pads/tablets/PCs.  When people OPEN their Sonos S2 app does it take 10-40 seconds to load/refresh?  Is it laggy when changing sources, volume levels? Do the graphics take time to load after the app has started?  

Again, this ONLY happened once S2 was download and installed on various platforms and Sonos is aware and have determined it’s NOT my system. 

We love our 17+ Sonos whole house audio system, but there are ongoing issues that cause a lot of annoyances and this is just one of them.

 

 

E
Userlevel 1

Similar issues here- system worked perfectly but now is laggy, and speakers constantly drop off network or disconnect then reconnect.
 

I have two separate homes, with different ISPs, different routers, different TV brands, and one with a hardwired connection. Separate Sonos  accounts. Both have the similar problems, which coincided with upgrading the app and purchasing two new ARCs. Before that, it was a totally different experience- several years with no issues at all. I’ve worked with tech support, reinstalled apps, reinstalled the speakers, but the end result is still a buggy system. 
 

It’s VERY frustrating for those of us who know something about networking to have people on these forums keep blaming the network. I can tell you, it is not my network(s). And even if it was, how can it be that every other product or gadget I have ever purchased did not have these issues (including Sonos prior gen), but Sonos does.... this is a relatively mature company and technology.


The fact that SO MANY people are complaining about the same issues makes it clear that this is a problem… just because your system works doesn’t not prove that the software is fine. There are several other forums with similar complaints. These are speakers, and the core functionality of playing audio content should not be so fickle. 

 

It should not be this complicated or frustrating for people with otherwise functional home networks and hardware to use a Sonos product. Period. Its even worse to degrade the experience after users invest considerable dollars in a closed ecosystem that used to work consistently. 
 

J

The slow loading is tiresome. I’ve gotten fed up with having to tool around and fix Sonos issues. I’m quitting Sonos altogether.

@Anthony George .  This thread is five months old and has unearthed a handful of users experiencing this issue.  There are millions of users out there using the app.  The app is just a remote control and its speed is 99% down to network communications.

So if you choose to dump Sonos rather than sort out what is actually going wrong, that is your loss.

T

This thread should not be marked as answered

Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
Badge +22

Ubiquity Access Points - you access them from either a controller (Cloud Key or built into a Ubiquity router) or their App. There might be ssh access too but I think [it has been years] it must be enabled first.

You really need to visit their forums and your account page there: https://account.ui.com/

Ken_Griffiths

One of the most frustrating things with the S2 app is its slowness. Specifically, when moving from one track to the next in a playlist the details of the new track don’t appear, sometimes until halfway through the song. 

Sounds like a bit of network issue, or an issue between the Controller App and the speakers, as the ‘now playing’ screen updates almost instantly here with the selected track details and the Album Art takes a second, or so, after the track begins playing.

See attached example screen-capture, as I manually select each one of the tracks in a queued playlist…

1 Attachment
C
Userlevel 1

I am also experiencing this issue and have been unable to resolve it.
 

My network (Amplifi by Ubiquity) performs excellently in all other respects but I have done a full factory reset on all routers, mesh points and Sonos speakers but noticed no improvement. Airplay 2 picks up the speakers instantly but the Sonos app is often very slow. 
 

I too have tried all the steps in the FAQ with no success. 

M

I have tried the “solutions” offered in the answer and agree with you @Trenty. This should not be marked as answered.

I have 10 unit system and there is no lag when it comes to playing music, but the S2 system is pure *nonsense*.  Very slow to open, and each time I try to add a song it is spinning wheel time for 5-20 seconds before it tells me it is either added to playlist or not available. 

It was working perfectly until i upgraded to the S2 system and ever since it has just not been the same. I have even tried deleting the whole system and setting it up as new, but to no avail. 

I’ll contact the support team next (my own damn fault for not doing it earlier). 

Good luck everyone!

 

*Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.*

B
Userlevel 1
Badge +1

I’m experiencing the same thing as kassey22000

I dont have any issues streaming music nor operating the app from a PC.  My issue is just from the iPhone S2 app.  (Whatever OS is current on the iPhone as of 01/2021 - i know it just upgraded).
My issue appears limited to the iPhone app - and only within the last few months.  I have deleted the app and reloaded on the phone 3 times now - the latest just this morning and the issue remains.
It typically takes about a full minute+ for the app to load and sometimes it never loads at all.
No issue at all from multiple PC apps on the same network.  I may look into the diagnostics that Airgetiam recommended since reinstalling the app has had no effect.

 

K
Userlevel 6
Badge +3

Sonos is completely mum on this subject (even within the top tier support team).  What are they going to do to fix this or will Sonos continue to be the slowest app on over 10 devices with over 100 combined apps in our household?

S2 was promised to be an improvement not a downgrade.   

controlav
Userlevel 7
Badge +23

I use FING to search my local network and I can see each of my SONOS products has their own IP address. I do have 55 IP addresses in my system….perhaps that is too many.

Depends on your router. I remember having a Frontier router that turned to crap once I had more than 35 or so devices, turned out the NAT table was too small. Its the only time my Sonos system was ever unreliable. Fixed with a router upgrade (newer Frontier router with much larger NAT table).

The easiest way to debug slow app startup is to capture the network traffic, or look at the logs that the PC app generates (less detailed but easier for the non-networking experts). A lot of local calls are made during startup (though all very quick), but if one device is slow it will drag down the entire process. The logs can help in determine the slow device (which when rebooted will fix the issue).

Author of the leading independent Sonos app for Windows, the only Sonos app for Xbox, and a Sonos app for iOS
P
Userlevel 2
Badge

I have experienced the same app loading lag and have had a few SONOS speakers simply disappear from my system. I unplug, reboot every few days which temporarity fixes it. This ALL started when I began using S2. S1 worked flawlessly for years. My feeling is S2 coincided with SONOS dumping the abillity to play Apple Music and the roll out of their own competing streaming music service. It’s like the app is now so larded down that it just takes a while to load and has glitches. 

This is exactly the situation where setting reserved IP addresses would help. The router keeps losing track of IP addresses. Setting up reserved IPs would help that router from ending up in that state again, and keep that annoying delay/dropping from happening.
 

It would be easier to point the finger at Sonos and their S2 software, and wait for a ‘bug fix’, but it is a local router issue, and not something Sonos can address. 

I use FING to search my local network and I can see each of my SONOS products has their own IP address. I do have 55 IP addresses in my system….perhaps that is too many.

I have three times that amount of devices on my Home network, so it’s not that,  it takes less than 10s to open the Sonos app from a fully closed state and to find 25+ devices here on the wireless LAN (IP addresses are reserved in my case for all my Sonos devices)  - but if you’re having difficulty, then check the devices SNR levels - get them all with a reading of 45dB or higher and ideally where practical, put them on the faster 5Ghz band. Reduce any local WiFi interference too.

It’s also worth just backgrounding the App, when its not in use, rather than fully closing it, as that only takes less time to bring it into focus and have things working (ensure the device is not using things like WiFi calling and don’t have the App set to use mobile data, aswell as WiFi, as those things can give a slight improvement too.

Thanks, I’ll see if I can implement these ideas. 

P

I also had this Problem, changed my Network Setting on the Router.

2,4 GHz-Network channel from 1 to 6 and my Problem is solved. 

Hello, 
I had latency problems on S2 with my Sonos system (Mesh network, with a sonos boost).
I changed channel 1 to 6 and the latencies disappeared.
Thanks for the info :) 

N

Seeing similar stuff. Changing from one album to another is also slow. The music might start playing but refreshing of the visuals is slow. 
 

The original app was snappy - even on an old iPhone 6S. This one is laggy. No changes to my network and other stuff. Just update from S1 to S2. 
 

Ironically the S2 demands fast response from sources. Like my NAS that holds our music might take 2-3 seconds to wake up and serve a song to the Sonos system. That’s too long time and the S2 app will report an error and that the song is not available. Try same song 3 s later and it works fine. 
 

 

B

I have the same issues with the S2 upgrade. I only have one Connect. It was only 2 years old and was upgradable. I have am iOS app and a PC app that takes much longer to find the system. The issue for both apps is that album art display is painfully slow, sporadic, or not any art at all. Also, user controls are no longer functional. Play, pause, volume slider are unpredictable, have several seconds lag, or don’t respond at all. I have tried resetting router, restarting Connect, reinstalling apps. This does not solve the problem.

 

This was a smooth, flawless system before. I believe that what I need to try is to revert back to S1. Has anybody done this? Thanks.

Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
Badge +22

I spent many hours on the IP address issue and was never able to pin it down to a Sonos or router problem. Both looked to be doing exactly what was expected.

Still things didn’t work, particularly at updates or power fail/restore times.

Setting the static/reserved IPs solved my issue.

Number of clients supported should be addressed in the router’s forums but unless it is junk it should happily support at least a /24, about 250 devices.

M

Yes, I too am experiencing very slow loading/refresh of the S2 app v 12.2.6 on iOS.

Seems as the Sonos hardware products advance, the software and service side of the house wanes.

S

I am also experiencing many issues with the new app. Ever since S2 launched, the app is incredibly slow to load (25 sec in some cases) and the “my sonos playlist” is iffy. Most times it doesn’t appear at all, once in a while it appears and I can begin to choose from my playlists. I don’t understand why the app is so terrible now, all I know is this wasn’t happening at all last year. Others come over to use my system and they like the songs I have on my sonos playlists, and the playlist never loads. That’s actually how I first noticed something was wrong when my brother and dad pointed this out to me. I panicked thinking my sonos playlists were deleted, but eventually they appeared. Incredibly iffy as to when it appears now. Incredibly frustrating! 

A

S2 app is a joke.

I like the quality of the Sonos hardware, I like the support people I’ve been in contact with.

But the S2 app is an embarrassment. Slow, unstable, with bad communication to streaming services.

N
Userlevel 5
Badge +9

Still got this issue. Open the app - start playing playlist - close app - open app later and still showing details of track that was playing when app first opened - controls still work and will change track, stop etc. but artwork does not update. Sometimes tapping around will bring the app back to where it should be other times closing the app may make  it springinto life and sometimes even closing the app and opening it will still leave you at the first track you played.

busy trying to edit the queue
J
Badge

One of the most frustrating things with the S2 app is its slowness. Specifically, when moving from one track to the next in a playlist the details of the new track don’t appear, sometimes until halfway through the song. 

M

Same problem. App takes ages to load. 
 

I am using a Velop mesh network and can video conference reliably throughout my home. But Sonos app struggles as do some speakers. Pressing play/pause can take 10 seconds to have an effect. Ditto volume controls. Not far off wanting to switch to something else. 

R
Badge +1

I also had this Problem, changed my Network Setting on the Router.

2,4 GHz-Network channel from 1 to 6 and my Problem is solved. 

Ken_Griffiths

@vram,

If your Sonos App is perhaps taking much longer to discover all your devices than the example shown in the uploaded animation, then it’s ‘highly likely’ a network/router issue, as @controlav mentions. It’s only ever as good as the very last Sonos device to report back - so perhaps focus on that as your starting point.

Airgetlam

As a throw away comment, I do have to wonder if perhaps BT pushed out some sort of update to their routers that might be contributing to this. 

I’m a US user, and not seeing this altered behavior either. 

Bruce

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